Chapter No. 175 Unbelievable.
You never know!
Alexa and I climbed out of the pool and sat down on chairs around a small table to drink some wine, which Alexa simply created.
"That was fun." I said.
"I agree," she said.
Suddenly out of the shadows, an unclothed female android appeared and walked over to us. I realized that we were seeing Judy in all her glory. Her face, her figure, and her form were perfection personified.
"I am grateful that you have reconciled with my command of the collective," she said without any indication of emotion. "I will reward your loyalty with the ability to morph into whatever you wish."
"I'm not sure I understand what that means, or even what good it would be," I said.
"I have broken with my father and brother to take over the collective and reform its mission. In doing so, I had to morph into unrecognizable forms to trick them. My tactic drove them from the collective, forcing them to create their own collectives, which with your help have been recovered and assimilated. My father's influence has been eliminated, but my brother's influence still exists. The ability to morph will allow you to overcome him."
"I accept your explanation," I said. "What do you expect from us?"
"I wish that you continue what you've been doing to help us locate the remaining rebel collectives."
"We accept that mission," I replied.
She nodded and disappeared.
"Interesting," I said without looking at Alexa.
"That's an overstatement," she replied. "I hadn't expected the morph power."
"I'm beginning to think we're in a Harry Potter scenario."
She gave me a funny look.
"Harry Potter was a fictional practitioner of the realm of magic."
"It does sound like we're practicing magic, but I'm sure it's just a quantum thing."
I chuckled. "Yeah, quantum physics is to blame for everything."
"I guess we have a real mission now," she said.
"Yes, and I suppose we had better get on with it."
She laughed.
The next day, we appeared on the command deck and took our assigned places.
"Judy, take us out with two Intrepid-1 ships, five Explorer-1 vessels, including Brian's and the usual Myst, Scath and Robo ships."
"Where do you wish to go?" she asked.
"Let's explore the universe that's linked to the last universe we recovered androids."
Our ship accelerated away to 0.7 the speed of light before going to spin drive.
"Do you think there are androids there?" Alexa asked.
"I don't know, but it would make sense based on our other rescue incidents."
After several spin drive jumps and passthroughs to other universes, we arrived at a universe we had not been in. it was a more mature universe with around a trillion galaxies. Molly began scanning for android quantum signals.
"I still don't understand where our powers come from," Alexa said. "Now, we supposedly have a power that doesn't make sense."
"I think it has to do with a super-symmetrical boson particle, perhaps something akin to the higgssino. It might even have something to do with dark matter, which is alleged to be a boson."
"I don't understand any of that."
"Think of it this way. Bosons carry fields. The Higgs boson carries mass to other particles, and bosons can occupy the same state at the same time unlike the other particle types. In other words, it's how Tyco was able to create avatars. He could be in two places at the same time."
She frowned. "Whatever!"
I chuckled. "Don't sweat it. Just accept it and enjoy the ride."
"I have detected a weak quantum signal coming from a galaxy that's fifty billion light years from our present position," Molly informed us.
"Good. Take us there Judy."
We arrived at a smaller spiral galaxy that had a well-formed bar. Its supermassive black hole was shooting out quasar-like beams that were heating up nearby gas to a brilliant white glow, meaning that the galaxy was being bathed in lots of radiation.
"I've pinpointed the quantum signal to a system that's nearer to the center of the galaxy," Molly said.
"Really? That doesn't seem like a very habitable region."
"I don't think it's a normal star."
"Take us there, Judy, but maintain distance."
We accelerated into warp and after a half hour were near the quantum signal source.
I looked at the main screen to see a beam of bright light flash across the image. "What are we dealing with here?"
"It's a pulsar," Molly replied. "There's a planet orbiting it, but it's being raked by the pulsar."
"I don't understand. How could the android signals be coming from a planet orbiting a pulsar?"
"I think the androids are underground."
I turned to Alexa. "If this is a trick, it's a weird one."
"It doesn't make sense."
"I can sense the underground cavity where the androids are. I suppose the only way to find out what's going on is to go there."
"Do you need me?" Alexa asked.
"I don't want to risk both of us. I'll take Ben and Alice instead."
They appeared on the command deck, and I turned to them. "We'll teleport to the underground cavity. We'll go with armor. Ben, you take a BFG. Alice, you bring a scanner."
They made those items appear and we teleported to the underground cavity to find a large number of android charging stations. There was no light, so we created our own.
Alice began a scan of the androids. After several minutes, she had a report. "These are all human-based female androids."
"How many?"
"Ten thousand."
"What in the hell are ten thousand human-based androids doing on a planet orbiting a pulsar?"
I didn't get a response, but I realized there was a problem. "We have to teleport these androids to the ship, but we have to time it to avoid any of them getting struck by the pulsar beam."
"We will take care of that," Ben said.
"Good. I'm going to see if I can find anything else that would identify them."
Ben and Alice began the tricky task of teleporting the androids to our vessel while I searched for additional information about them. I couldn't find anything that would explain what was going on.
After the androids had been transferred, Alice, Ben and I teleported back to our vessel. I sat down to Alexa.
"Who are those people?" she asked.
"Good question," I said.
"We have assimilated them," Judy said. "Their identifications are available."
"They are just a random group of females," Molly said. "They have no connection to Space Command. The data seems to indicate that Tyco simply collected a bunch of females for no reason."
"After they're sufficiently charged, resurrect them."
Later that evening at our command meeting, Molly had additional information. "These women are performers. There's a complete classical music orchestra, a dance company, and a . . . well, I guess you could refer to them as a male entertainment ensemble."
That resulted in snickers.
"Just what we need," I quipped.
They laughed.
"What I don't understand is why they were left on a planet orbiting a pulsar."
"I think that Tito assumed that we couldn't rescue them," Molly said. "I don't think he realized how we could use our powers to do it."
"Okay, that makes sense. I wonder how many other androids are out there in the multiverse."
"We'll just have to hunt for them."
"Yeah, that's all we can do."
Later that evening, we got to see the fifty women who had been made pregnant. They seemed happy with their baby bumps. Marie and Margaret had provided them with maternity tops. The sight of that many pregnant women was both amusing as it was soothing. It made all of us feel more human.
I met up with the men in the Black Hole bar to enjoy male comradeship.
"Alex gets the prize," Barny said. "He knocked up three of them. I only did one."
"I did two," I said.
"How do they know who did what?" George asked.
"Judy knows everything that goes on," I said. "She is one of two thousand Judy's.
Each of our vessels is piloted by two of them."
"That's crazy," Vince said.
"No, it's how the collective is controlled. She is the true leader. I'm just a figurehead."
"Basically, you're just like us," Tyler said.
"Yeah, a mere commoner."
He chuckled and raised his beer mug. "To our de jure leader!"
The others joined him.
"I accept your designation as being the recipe for a better life."
"Here, here!" They shouted in unison.
Jessica, the leader of the barmaids, dressed in her sheer mesh baby doll lingerie outfit, walked over in her high heels and placed her hand on my shoulder.
What she said next changed everything.